Chinese Court Sentences Teenagers to Death in Killing of Jume Tahir, Islamic Cleric

BEIJING — A Chinese court has sentenced two teenagers to death for what the authorities said was their role in the murder of a prominent Islamic cleric in the western region of Xinjiang, the state news media reported Monday.

Prosecutors said the defendants played key roles in the assassination this summer of Jume Tahir, a government-backed imam who presided over China’s largest mosque, Id Kah, a 15th-century landmark in the oasis city of Kashgar.

The verdict, issued Sunday and just two months after Mr. Tahir’s killing, underscores the authorities’ determination to display a firm resolve in the face of spiraling violence in the region.

The news reports did not disclose the ethnicity of the defendants, but their names made it clear they are members of China’s Uighur minority, a largely Muslim people who have long resented Beijing’s governance of the region and have become increasingly bold in their resistance to what many say are heavy-handed policies.

Despite an overwhelming show of force across southern Xinjiang, a wave of violence has claimed at least 400 lives in the past year, and hundreds of people have been detained. Most of the dead have been Uighurs shot by the police, although scores of Han, members of China’s dominant group, have been killed in ethnic bloodletting.

Mr. Tahir, 74, was an official with the state-run Xinjiang Islamic Association and an especially divisive figure among China’s 10 million Uighurs. Frequently quoted in the state news media, he was a reliable supporter of government restrictions on so-called unlawful religious practices. Those restrictions include rules barring adolescents from mosques and prohibitions on underground madrassas, as well as on veils for women and long beards on men.

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The imam, Jume Tahir, 74, was killed on July 30.CreditReuters

The imam was reportedly stabbed to death as he left sunrise services on July 30; the police later shot and killed two suspects and arrested a third, Nurmemet Abidilimit, 19, who was among those sentenced to death on Sunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The other man who received the death penalty, Gheni Hasan, 18, was accused of training the assailants and, more broadly, of “forming and leading terrorist groups,” Xinhua said. A third defendant, Atawulla Tursun, was given a life sentence.

People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, said that the men had been influenced by religious extremist videos from abroad and that their decision to kill the imam was motivated by a desire to “do something big to raise their reputations as terrorists.” Previous official news accounts said that Mr. Abidilimit had confessed his role in the attack and implicated the others.

Xinhua said the three were represented by government-appointed lawyers, but it did not provide their names or say whether the defendants intended to appeal. Asked about the case, a man who picked up the phone at the People’s Intermediate Court in Kashgar, where the trial took place, declined to comment and hung up.

China’s criminal justice system is notoriously opaque, and court proceedings in Xinjiang are especially sensitive and off limits to foreign journalists. Security restrictions in the region make it difficult to confirm the government’s version of events.

The killing of Mr. Tahir in Kashgar came two days after a bloody clash between the police and Uighurs in the nearby city of Yarkand that left nearly 100 people dead. The Chinese news media said the violence in Yarkand was caused by “terrorists” who attacked government buildings and ethnic Han passers-by. Exile groups have described the Yarkand incident as a massacre.

Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group based in Germany, condemned the harsh sentences for the defendants in the imam’s murder, saying they would do little to stem the rising tide of Uighur discontent.

“The Chinese government should examine the roots of the problems, which are caused by coercive policies that Uighurs find unbearable,” he wrote. “It should respect the Uighur religion and traditional way of life, and stop provocations to avoid triggering new turmoil.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: China: Court Sentences 2 Teenagers to Death in Killing of an Islamic Cleric. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe